Oh baby, look at us now!
Rebecca Novis (Sales) has recently featured in the May/June issue of Slimming World magazine and also the national newspaper, the Daily Express after losing one and a half stone through attending Slimming World Classes.
''When you are feeling a little overweight and frumpy, the last thing you need is a walking, talking reminder of how good you used to look before you had a baby. Thanks to my identical twin sister Hollie, that is exactly what I had.
When I discovered I was pregnant, Hollie and I were both size 10 and weighed just over 10 stone, perfect for our height of 5ft 7in. At first, I ate plenty of wholemeal bread, fresh fruit and vegetables and hardly gained any weight. Then at seven months I developed an insatiable appetite for sweets, chocolate and crisps. I seemed to grow all over. I even went up three shoe sizes.
After Daniel was born in May 2008, I didn’t dare weigh myself. When I eventually did brave the scales four weeks later, I was 12st 7lb. There was no chance of being mistaken for my sister now I was bursting out of my size 14s. Breastfeeding Daniel helped me to lose about a stone-and-a-half but I couldn’t shift the rest and still weighed 11stone.
With Hollie’s wedding as an incentive, my mum and I decided to join Slimming World together.
I’ve always enjoyed cooking with fresh ingredients but it didn’t take me long to see where I was going wrong. Wholemeal bread might be a healthy choice but I’d been eating two big slices at every meal as well as chocolate, biscuits and crisps in between. I learned how to make healthier choices such as choosing a low-fat packet of crisps and switching to a smaller chocolate treat.
I was down to my target of 9st 7lb and a size 10 just in time for Hollies’ engagement party and people couldn’t stop congratulating me and handing me presents: not because they knew how much weight I’d lost but because they thought I was Hollie. It brought home to me how much I’d achieved in a little over two months''.
Article published on 12th April 2010.
